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Some basic questions from a newbie.

Hi, I am new to this forum, and I have watched a lot of tutorials and read some threads about softmodding a Wii, so I think I am understanding how this all works.
Although I want to have a confirmation, so I'll just write down the basic gist of what I think is right, so someone can correct me before I do something wrong.

I have not yet bought a Wii, but I am now considering it solely for the purpose of softmodding it. I can choose between a White Wii and a Black Wii. They are basicly the same, only the Black Wii does not read DVD-R backups, forcing me to use USB storage. I think I will buy a black one though, because I like the color, and I don't mind using a hard drive instead of DVDs.
I will be using the Bannerbomb, because I assume the new Wii's will come with 4.0+ firmware already installed, and Bannerbomb works with everything up to 4.2.

This is the basics I already think I know, am I right so far?

But if I have some other questions I did not find answers to after some searching. (I have been reading about this for some hours now, so I think I'll allow myself to ask in this thread, since I already have searched the forums).

- I have a 500gb Seagate external USB HDD, I think that will work. But in case I want to buy a new HDD just for Wii use, does it require an external power source? Or does the USB port deliver enough power to the USB-powered HDDs?

- Is there any negative sides by using an HDD? Will all emulators be able to read from the HDD?

- I have seen a couple of people make shortcuts to the emulators as a channel, so you don't have to enter the HBC (Short for HomeBrew Channel? or what?) every time you want to load a ROM. Is this an easy process, is there any guides for that? And I have read some posts saying these forwarders makes the emulators not able to read from HDD. Confirm or deny?

- So far there isn't a perfect N64 emulator yet, but can you download Virtual Console games to your Wii? So I can play Mario64 and Zelda games without the N64 Emulator?

Please don't get slapped in the face by the wall of text here, I only hope to get some answers to these questions. I would greatly appreciate it!
Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read and hopefully clarifies my doubts and questions, I really hope to get this working so I can catch up to 20 years of Nintendo games.

Well I just bought a new wii the white one, 4.2 firmware, and succesfully did a softmod merely from reading the forums and following guides(and it all works flawlessly) I have a 1TB WD external, and yes it needs a power source, which will come with the drive.

As far as a negative for using a HDD i think there is nothing but upside, you dont deal with CD's so far less clutter and no changing out DVD's all the time. I installed wiiflow and love it, its very customizable for a USB Loader. hope this helps a bit, feel free to ask me any specific questions u may have.

Thank you for the tips about WiiFlow!
But is there any easy way to make a game appear as a channel on the main Wii menu? If I just want to quickly boot up whatever game I'm addicted to at the current time, it's a lot of unnecessary clicks to just boot one game.

So, is there a way to create channels on the main menu for my favorite games? So I won't have to boot up homebrew, emulators and whatever just to start a quick game. (I think these are called forwarders, but I don't know.)

There is a way to make channels from ISO's using WiiScrubber. You can then inject the custom channels onto your System Menu using Wad Manager [don't quote me on that]. You could also install something called cIOSCORP, which allowa the playing of any backup game through the disc channel [although I (as well as many other memebers of the forum) will advise against cIOSCORP as it makes extreme changes to your IOSs that shouldn't be made]